


'Twas the Night Before

by Sidney Sussex (SidneySussex)



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:05:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2840795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidneySussex/pseuds/Sidney%20Sussex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone's got their own way of celebrating the season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zolac_no_Miko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zolac_no_Miko/gifts).



> _I neither own nor profit from any of these characters; they are the property of Marvel Entertainment, LLC._
> 
> _If you see something that you think ought to be changed or improved, please feel free to let me know, if you'd like. Constructive criticism is always welcome. (And yeah, I totally mix and mash up the comics and the movie 'verse, and play around with timelines a little. Sorry.)_

Clint’s been looking forward to this for a while.

There’s a Christmas tree in his suite of rooms at Stark Tower – not one of the tall, elegant ones on the ground floors where Tony likes to impress people, but a little scraggly one he chose himself. (“Chose” isn’t strictly accurate either; maybe “stole from the top of a crane and dragged across rooftops until he got back to the tower, where he realized he’d lost half the brightly-coloured balls that had been hanging from the branches and also the tree itself looked quite a bit the worse for wear.”) But the point is, he’s got one, and it’s _his_ tree, dammit, with _his_ decorations, and it doesn’t really matter if it isn’t perfect, because that’s not the _point_.

Phil likes his tree, anyway. Though he did give Clint’s choice of decorations a sidelong glance and a little bit of a sigh.

(The tree is what JARVIS described as “bristling” with arrows. Clint thinks it’s great. So does Tony. Natasha muttered something quiet in Russian and rolled her eyes, but then, she does that every time Clint gets excited about anything, so he’s stopped caring.)

(Also, Phil was relatively horrified when he found out exactly how Clint _got_ the tree. Phrases were uttered. Phrases like, “You did _what_ now?” and “city property” and “criminal charges” and “you do realize Stark _offered_ you a tree, Barton, don’t you?”

Of course Clint realizes Tony offered him a tree. But that would’ve taken all the _fun_ out of it.)

Anyway, he’s got a tree, and it’s got lights on it and tinsel and a bunch of very festive arrows, and it’s Christmas tomorrow, and he’s happy. Almost. Something’s a little off.

He stares at the tree for a while, glowing warmly in the corner of the room, and thinks. JARVIS makes a few helpful suggestions – no, it isn’t the lack of any non-arrow-related ornaments (why would that be a problem?), it isn’t the fact that the rest of the room isn’t decorated (come on, what is he, Martha Stewart?), it isn’t the array of weaponry (his, Phil’s, a few Natasha will kill him when she finds out he’s borrowed) surrounding the cheerful scene.

“The gifts, perhaps, sir?” JARVIS suggests, and _that_ – that’s _it_. How’s it supposed to be a Christmas tree if there isn’t anything under it?

Ten minutes later, he’s sitting back against the far wall of the room, satisfied. Sure, maybe they aren’t very well-wrapped. And sure, maybe they’re all addressed to him, from him. And maybe they’re all the same shape – long, thin, pointy on one end… but they’re presents, and they’re under the tree, and _now_ Clint is ready for Christmas.


	2. The Eggnog

There’s a lot about Christmas Tony doesn’t really understand, but drinking is not one of those things.

He figures it’s probably because the parts of Christmas he’s not entirely sure about are the ones you’re supposed to learn early on – like _why_ you bother wrapping things up when you’re just going to tear the paper off again a day or two later, or _why_ you’d want a strange, overweight man in a fur-lined suit to break into your house in the middle of the night, or _why_ anyone would have a chimney in an age when Tony can plug a cable into his chest and power half of New York. He doesn’t really get the whole presents thing (which is why Pepper always buys her own) or the tree thing or the endless parties thrown by endless people who don’t really care whether he’s there or not beyond the flashy photo opportunity. He still participates, though, because he’s Tony Stark and he’s got to play the same game as everyone else; he’s got to keep up appearances. So there are twenty-foot-tall Fraser firs in his lobby, decorated tastefully in matching, themed colours; there are tables lined with crisp, white cloths bearing rows of glasses filled with quality red wine; there are empty boxes wrapped in bright paper staged around the building anywhere the public are allowed in.

In his own quarters, though, there’s nothing, which is exactly the way he wants it.

In the kitchen, though, is a fridge – normally filled with milk, because between Clint’s nighttime wanderings and Thor’s occasional visit, JARVIS can never keep enough dairy in the house. Tony’s seen Clint go through a carton and a half in a single sitting. Right now, though, there’s no milk in sight (Tony’s pretty sure there’s some crammed in at the bottom somewhere) and the fridge is filled to capacity with eggnog.

And that’s where Tony comes in, because Christmas might be the most tiresome holiday he has to contend with, but _eggnog_ – eggnog is good stuff. Eggnog with brandy is good stuff. Eggnog with rum is good stuff. Eggnog with bourbon is, apparently, good stuff; Tony hasn’t gotten around to that one yet. (He’s skeptical, but it’s hard to argue with a good excuse. Or a good bourbon.)

So maybe he’s in the kitchen, and maybe there are a few bottles on the counter and a carton of eggnog, and maybe he’s mixing his own drinks because he’s drinking… well, not _alone_ , exactly, he’s got a buddy, here, JARVIS, we’re buddies, aren’t we? Isn’t that right? (Yes, sir, we are.) He’s not alone. So it’s not like he’s _relieved_ , exactly, when Clint wanders in, or when he digs a thick glass tumbler out of the cupboard, or when he slams it down on the countertop and says, “Hit me.”

It’s not like he needed the company or anything, he thinks, as he pours the eggnog and the Jim Beam Masterpiece (his second-best; it’s only Clint, after all). It’s not like he even really gets the whole Christmas spending-time-with-people thing, whatever, who cares, people want to spend time with him all the time, he’s fighting them off with sticks.

It’s not like he even cares if Clint hangs around in the kitchen or not, he thinks, as he pulls up a chair (Clint perches on the counter; he always does). He can always go build something if Clint leaves.

Who really cares about Christmas that much, anyway?

He raises his glass in a toast. To whatever. To Clint, or JARVIS, or Christmas, or whatever. And eggnog. Definitely to eggnog.


	3. The Stockings

Natasha doesn’t really do traditional Christmas.

It’s not that she objects – quite the opposite, actually. She likes walking around downtown New York, watching people doing what they do at Christmastime. Children hanging off their parents’ arms, spotting things they want in storefront windows and begging like they’re dying of thirst in a desert. Couples pointing things out to each other, smiling, drawing closer in the cold. People of all ages, sizes and shapes bustling up and down streets, in and out of shops, carrying boxes and bags of gaily-wrapped surprises.

It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy it, because she does. But she’s a grown woman, and she doesn’t have anyone to buy presents for – or anyone to get presents from, unless she counts Clint and his annual gift of vodka and arrows – and so she doesn’t really bother with the trappings of Christmas for herself. She knows that irritates Clint, who’s like a five-year-old about Christmas (well, okay, about a lot of things), but he is, in theory, an adult, and he’ll survive.

It’s only when she steps back into her rooms at the tower after a day out, spent people-watching and drinking hot chocolate and admiring entirely impractical items of clothing in the windows of stores only people like Tony Stark can actually shop at, that she realizes just how serious Clint actually is about this Christmas thing.

While she’s been out, a tree has appeared in her room. Well, not a tree, _per se_ , more like a bare branch hung all about with decorations – but it’s close enough. And there’s a fire going in the fireplace. Well, not a fire, or even a fireplace, _per se_ , but the fancy flat-screen television Tony insisted she have is displaying the Yule log channel, crackling merrily away with some sort of carol playing softly in the background.

And there are stockings hung around the television.

The Post-It note next to the stockings says, “You didn’t have a chimney, this was the best I could do,” and the one stuck just below it says, “don’t you dare take them down.” The one nearest the door is labelled “Nat” and has a parcel in it (tall, badly-wrapped cylinder; vodka). The next one over says “Tasha” and it has a parcel in it, too (long, thin, pointy at one end; she doesn’t have to work hard to guess what’s in that one). The third one in says “Black Widow” and hasn’t got anything in it, presumably because this is where Clint’s creativity ran out. The fourth one says “Hawkeye,” and it’s got a few arrows stuck in it, but not wrapped, and not new. Natasha is fairly certain they were an afterthought, more for appearance’s sake than anything.

She smiles and settles back onto the bed, almost sorry to change the channel away from the ever-burning Yule log.

Natasha might not really do traditional Christmas, but it’s no coincidence that the channel she settles on is showing holiday movies, non-stop, all night.


	4. The Movies

A lot of this is new to Steve.

Christmas specials weren’t really a thing last time he had cause to celebrate the holiday. Christmas _songs_ , sure; Christmas food and drink and get-togethers and all of the traditional things it’s nice to see people haven’t forgotten. He doesn’t know what he would have done if they _weren’t_ still doing Christmas the usual way.

But apparently, sometime in between plane crash and revival, it’s become an integral part of the holidays to sit down together and watch a slew of movies he’s never seen before – most of them aimed at kids or families, but all of them so ingrained in the collective Christmas consciousness that to admit he hasn’t seen them, or worse, imply that he doesn’t need to, is tantamount to sacrilege.

So he’s acquiesced to a movie night, with the caveat that this had better not end like Tony’s usual movie nights – drunkenness, mayhem, popcorn in uncomfortable places, and, quite possibly, something on fire.

Tony’s promised he’ll try.

So here he is, sitting on the couch (well, it’s so soft and well-padded that he’s pretty much sitting _in_ it), watching something called _The Muppets Christmas Carol_ with Tony (sober), Clint (clearly having the time of his life), Natasha (looking more tolerant than anything else), and Bruce (preoccupied; Steve isn’t sure he’s even seeing the screen). Muppets are puppets with big mouths, round eyes and funny voices. Steve doesn’t know if maybe he missed this particular cultural revolution, but he does like Charles Dickens, so the message of the story isn’t going amiss. And it is kind of cute. In a strange way.

“You see,” Clint tells him, hours later, when Bruce and Natasha have both fallen asleep and Tony is kind of staring with the glazed eyes of a man who’s on his second or third day of wakefulness at the screen, where a black-clad skeleton is singing about monsters making toys, “this is what – this is how you – I mean, Christmas.” He waves a sleepy hand at the screen. “This is.”

“I see,” says Steve, and he isn’t making fun of Clint. He does. He might not understand about furry hand puppets or dancing skeletons or cartoon dogs, but they’re all sitting on the couch together, drinks and popcorn and shared blankets and JARVIS glowing softly from the screen of Tony’s StarkPad; they’re all together, they’re all happy, and he _does_ see. Because, whether they’re talking about seventy years ago or now, to him, that’s Christmas.


	5. The Turkey

Thor wasn’t supposed to be here.

He isn’t supposed to be on Midgard at all. He has duties, after all. It’s the Yule festival, and though the Wild Hunt has passed, there are still celebrations; there is still meat to be eaten, ale to be drunk, and merriment to be enjoyed with his family and with the people of Asgard. Thor is the prince regent of his land, and not to be present for the festivities is a grave dishonour.

But Thor also knows that he can be spared for a single night without too much concern, and he has loved ones and promises to keep on Midgard as well. It would be unbefitting of an ambassador not to be present during a time of celebration here, even should it coincide with one in his own home.

So Thor is on Midgard, at Stark Tower, in the kitchen, and he has a turkey.

Clint is sitting on the counter watching him.

“What are you doing now?”

“I am blessing the sacrificial meat.”

“It’s a turkey.”

“Is it not meat?”

“It’s not sacrificial. It’s from the store.”

Thor ignores him and continues preparing the bird.

“What are you doing now?”

“I drink a toast. Would you like to join me?”

“What are we toasting?”

“The first we drink to Odin, Allfather and my own. The second to Njord and Freyr, for good harvests and for peace. The third…”

“What?”

“The third we drink to the memory of those we have lost,” Thor says, because the third toast is traditionally to the king, and while his father yet lives, Thor does not wish to drink it to anyone else.

“I’ll drink to that,” Clint says softly, and they do.

By the time the scent of the turkey drifts through the tower (assisted, no doubt, by JARVIS, whom Clint begs to open all the vents), they’re both hard at work – Clint roasting vegetables and making the stuffing to go with it, Thor spicing the cider and mulled wine. There’s a bottle of mead in the cupboard, possibly courtesy of Tony, more likely courtesy of JARVIS, and hungry faces are starting to peer in at the door.

Diplomacy sometimes calls for sacrifices, but Thor finds that he doesn’t mind missing this particular day of Yuletide celebrations on Asgard.


	6. The Presents

The thing about being a giant green rage monster part of the time is that you tend to go unnoticed when you’re not.

It’s a fact of life that has served Bruce well, because it means he can move around quietly when people don’t know he’s there. If he alerts them to his presence, that’s another matter entirely, because once they’re aware of him, they watch him like they think he’s always about ten seconds away from Hulking out. (He lets them believe it, too, because it’s useful sometimes.) But if they don’t notice him right away, he can sit in a room for half an hour, watching and listening, before anyone realizes he’s there.

As a result, Bruce hears things.

The neatly-trimmed tree in the lush living room suite on Tony’s floor, clearly a product of some commercial decorator (possibly assisted after the fact by Clint, if the purple arrows on the middle branches are any indication), has a pile of gifts under it, and they aren’t the glamorously-wrapped empty boxes that are on the public floors. These ones are neat, but clearly wrapped by an amateur; the tape is visible and there’s a little tag on each one, completed in thin, spidery handwriting.

They aren’t to be opened until Christmas Day – that much is obvious, but if it weren’t, the notes stuck onto each of them make it explicitly clear. Tony, not one to break rules if he can find a way to bend them into pretzels instead, hasn’t touched them.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what’s inside, though. JARVIS has remarkably efficient scanners, and X-ray technology is so old Tony’s surprised everyone hasn’t got their own private machine by now.

He’s a little surprised at what he’s found out and, because there’s no point in being obnoxious if no one knows about it, he’s gone around the tower asking everyone until Bruce finally rolled his eyes and admitted to it. “Not like it’s a secret, Tony,” he says, “but what’s it to you? I made sure you had one as well.”

“Why’d you get Thor a telescope?” Tony asks.

“You weren’t supposed to open them until tomorrow,” Bruce sighs. “And _you_ are only supposed to open the one with your name on it.”

“I didn’t open them,” Tony says. “JARVIS did. Well, he looked inside.”

Bruce sighs again. Tony gets that a lot.

“He and Jane do a lot of star, you know.”

“Stargazing.”

“Astronomical observation,” Bruce says. “He likes it.”

“Don’t you think Jane has enough telescopes?”

“This one belongs to Thor.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t get Clint arrows.”

“Don’t you think Clint has enough arrows?”

“Clint can never have enough arrows.”

“I put some in his stocking.”

“And why’d you give Steve a drawing tablet? I could’ve made him one for free. Special Super Soldier strength-resistant design.”

“That’s not the point, Tony. You probably could’ve built a better telescope, too. And fancy trick arrows for Clint. And some kind of first edition autographed version of the book I got Natasha. Or a pony or something for Thor. It’s not about whether or not they’re the best or the most expensive.”

“Oh.”

There’s a pause.

Bruce asks, “So what didn’t you like about the present I got _you_?”

There’s another pause.

“I didn’t ask JARVIS to scan that one,” Tony admits.

Bruce smiles.

“Good,” he says. “Shut up and go away. You can open yours tomorrow, just like the rest of us.”

What Tony doesn’t know is that Bruce has given him _two_ presents. The first one is the one in the carefully-wrapped box. The second one is the conversation he had with JARVIS as he put the gifts under the tree.

(“Yes, JARVIS, I know he’s going to scan them. Of course he’s going to scan them. No, it’s okay. You can tell him what’s inside them. After all, what fun would Christmas be for him if he didn’t find a way to outsmart it?”)


End file.
